Chapter 178 - One Hundred And Seventy-eight

Only silence was heard from both sides. No one spoke a word and only their breathings were heard. This had been so tough, to take out every feeling that she had buried inside her and then spout them at the face of her mother. It was difficult but she felt free.

This feeling of freedom was better than what she said when she had moved out of that house and shifted to New York to study. this feeling was better than when she thought of not acknowledging her mother's absence at her wedding when she was supposed to give her daughter away.

This was better than anything.

"You have never tried to become a mother to me and all you do is taunt me. If you're not ready for a child and make sacrifices for them then you should have said it to dad instead of having me."

She choked as she continued, "instead of making me feel I was the one you were ruining your life for. You could have just chosen not to have me. No one was going to charge you for an abortion, mother. Instead, it would have been a brave decision to not have a child when you were not ready for it. Because I can tell you that the life you gave me was not worth living." 

"I have given you everything I could." Vanessa cried from the other side. "I have done everything that I could ever think of to do for you."

Alexis shook her head as tears slipped. "No, you did not." She shook her head and sniffed. "This is not fair. the most important thing in our relationship was supposed to be the love of a mother that you had for your daughter but you never showed me any. You forgot that and that is like forgetting to put potatoes in the mashed potatoes." She sniffed and continued not caring if she was barely understandable. "It is like forgetting the main ingredient. Like that thing that everything is based on."

"I.." Vanessa was crying too. Maybe not as much as Alexis but she was.

"It hurt me so much that when I used to wake up you were gone. You would have made your breakfast and not even cared for mine; a ten-year-olds. Whenever you came back from work all you could say was 'I am so tired of work', where-why was there a child in your house if all you were feeling was tiredness from work."

Alexis wiped off her tears and got ready to ask her mother the ultimate question. "Do you even remember the last birthday that we celebrated? What do you even remember when my birthday is?"

When she heard silence on the other side of the phone, Alexis could not help but laugh. there was nothing sad about this she had faced this constant disappointment throughout her life and now it just showed her how right she was.

"That is the right mother." She smiled. "You have forgotten my birthday for more than 20 years of my existence. 20 years since dad has been gone. He was taken away from both me and you, yet you felt that you were the only one who suffered."

"I love him.." Vanessa whimpered. "I loved him more than I loved me."

"I doubt that you loved him more than you love yourself. Because to be frank that is impossible." Then she yelled at her mother, "you were in a relationship with him for 10 years! I was his daughter, I was born because of him. He was there all my life, do you not think that the blow to me would have been more than it was to you!" 

"Yet all you ever did was make me somehow feel that it was my fault for existing when he did not!" She yelled without any remorse or shame. This world was not worthy of those too qualities. "you cut me off all the time and then come back as we were the best of the friends. You changed your mobile number and then called me whenever you felt like it. Is that fair to your only child?" She whispered. A broken voice whispering of a daughter whispering complaints to her mother was hearing them for the first time.

"I didn't even realise..that ..."

"..That you were so selfish." Sniffing and still crying a Little, Alexis completed the sentence the way she wanted it to end. "So selfish that everything you felt you did was for others. It was not. You said that you worked day and night for me, Tell me something mom, when you have kids supporting them financially is a given necessity or not? Even if you don't have children you do work hard to earn promotions and have a successful career. That you do for yourself. Yet everything you did was for me?!" She yelled loudly and glared at the wall as if it was her mother.

Vanessa couldn't help but whisper as she heard her child's accusations, "You have gotten so bitter.." she said. "I did do everything for you. everything."

"Hah!" Alexis laughed out Loudly. "Did you shit for me too?!"

"Alexis!" Her mother gasped. "What had gotten into you!"

"What's gotten into me?" She laughed as she said that. She started to laugh so hard that she had started to struggle in breathing.

"I'll tell you what," she snapped. "Everybody around me does everything for me! For my betterment, well being or whatever!"

"And what's wrong with that?" Vanessa snapped back. "If they are doing something for you, why can't you be Grateful? Is not how it should be?" She growled out. "If someone does something for you, you take it as it is. You take the help!"

"No, no, no," she tutted. "You take help of you to need it, mother. You don't want it, you don't take it."

The next words slipped out of her mind as if an eel. "And how can you ever be sure be sure that it is for your betterment and not for their good?"

She heaved after talking about it and the reality set in.

She had been a fool.

A big, big fool.